I was listening to someone on NPR forecasting a distant future where we would no longer age due to advances in genetics and disease would be mostly stamped out. It led me to ask the question what would that do to the airline industry?
Yes, the airline industry. My logic goes as follows. We make trade-offs everytime we decide to drive a car, cross a street or jump on an airplane. The trade-off is that there is a very small but non-zero chance that we may die. Since we know that we are going to die one day anyways – we are only trading off 20, 30 or 50 years. However, the equation changes drastically when I am asked to trade off a possible eternal life for a trip to the other coast- it may not be worth it.
People would stop flying, drive much safer cars (if at all), engage in extremely protected sex, ski slopes would be empty and para-anything (jumping, gliding) would be considered an act of heroism.
What do you think?
Credits: Image by KnivesOut